Category Archives: patriotism

Praying, But Not to God

I write this on International Pizza Day, so I wish you a Happy IPD, and a tasty pie made just the way you like it. We’re sad not to be celebrating in the usual way, i.e., the one described in How to Start Your Own Holiday.

Also, please enjoy this essay I wrote about prayer at the Biden inauguration. I won’t be putting every Washington Post piece on my website–since I can really only point to them anyway–but I do want to call your attention to one that emerged from years of thinking about religion and God in the public sphere as well as from that crystalline moment on January 20.

Other recent columns anticipate Trump’s future presidential portrait, appreciate feeling body-less in the Zoom era, and, just this past weekend, explain why a person should watch the Super Bowl (note: it’s true even if the game in question is very, very bad). And more!

But this one, reflecting on the need for prayer and wondering if we could pray while keeping church and state separate, is one that I hope kicks around for a while. Read it here and let me know what you think.

You can read the rest of the column here at The Washington Post.

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Giving Up Thanksgiving

It took me a while to accept the fact that Thanksgiving 2020 could not be like all the others. The only way to celebrate it right was to give it up for the year. Read my essay here in The Washington Post.

Read the rest here at The Washington Post. And/or read my previous Thanksgiving pieces right here on this site: “Grace for an Atheist Table” and “A Thanksgiving Paradox.”

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The World Turned Rightside Up?

I’m a little late alerting my subscribers to my latest Washington Post column, but, it turns out, still too early for Trump supporters (and most Congressional Republicans) to acknowledge the results of the election. I doubt they will suffer the consequences of that behavior–and I fear the rest of us will. But if you go by, say, the actual votes, we have turned Trump into a one-termer, and that’s something. Read the whole column here.

Read the rest here, at The Washington Post.

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